How AMD Zen Almost Didn't Make It | Stories of Ryzen, ft. Unreleased CPUs

[Music] just remember that companies talk openly about their challenges but when we visited AMD in Austin Texas we finally got to hear some of the behind the scenes stories on how AMD bet everything on ryzen we were betting the company on Zen and so like Lisa came down you know and to preview the demo and I just remember her reaction she was like it's not really that exciting like these two guys are Bill and Ahmed two engineers at AMD who head up not only the overclocking Showmanship but IO and core testing as well as engineering these guys walked us through the AMD Austin campus For an upcoming separate video and unprecedented lab tour of Andy's facilities ranging from testing to device analysis but along the way we got first row seats to a gripping story about how Zen came to be they found two parts that worked at room temperature oh man so literally we have two parts you can feel the second hand stress oh dude this video wasn't meant to be part of our lab tour shoot with AMD it was just a side conversation but the conversation was so uniquely insightful to the behind the scenes of CPU design and bring up that we had to run it as a standalone Beast we even got to learn about unreleased products like dual CCD x3d Parts this is a 16 core with dual x 3D CCD so 192 Megs of cash today we're learning from Bill and Ahmed about how Zen almost didn't make the first showcase we have at least three additional lab tour videos coming up after this so be sure to subscribe and check back regularly over the course of the next week for the next one because it'll be a big lab tour for now let's hear some stories of Zen before that this video is brought to you by the Lexar nm800 Pro Gen 4 SSD the nm800 is a heavy duty SSD with an included heatsink thermal pad contact with heatsink and high transfer speeds across a gen 4x4 nvme interface the Luxor nm800 Pro is available in 512 gigabyte one terabyte and 2 terabyte capacities and Lexar notes that it's included a heat spreader plus its choice of nand allows it to run at 7 500 megabytes per second sequential read and 6500 megabytes per second sequential right at fastest learn more at the link in the description below when Bill told me you were coming I wanted to come and get some of the kind of historical Parts ah from the history of Zen so okay so the first one is this one so let's open this up so check this out so this part you can see it looks kind of old school yes so this is a Zen uh a0 part so the first version of Zen and you can see on there it's part 19. this is literally this is actually the 19th one the 19th Zen Everman who has did it start at zero or one it starts at one if it has one I think Lewis might have it okay yeah well we'll have to ask him they came on a tray right yeah this is like from literally the first tray of Zen parts that we ever that's cool so when was was this 26 this is April 2016. okay yeah so that got me thinking so you know these bring ups are a big event we fly in dozens hundred people right from all over the world to Austin ah right we have the BIOS experts board experts OS everything yeah we're all excited you know we know when the part's coming because we're tracking it through the Fab so we're all here I I still remember we're all in this conference room and the day the day before the park gets here they tell us they found a problem and basically memory didn't work oh okay and you know memory's like one of the one of the first things we do is copy yeah the vials into memory right and so we're like What are we gonna do right so anyway we we worked on it was one of the it was a colossal engineering challenge how do you boot a system without memory right so um we we did something we can go to detail on that maybe some other time but anyway uh we did a quick rev so were you able to get it it sounds like you had like basically 24 hours to figure it out 24 hours to start coming up with a plan of what okay who who is involved in this crisis mode process I mean is that is it the team you guys are on is it like everybody it was all hands on deck okay because because we had to say okay where is the memory in the system what can we use should we use memory off pcies we use memory off USB I'm just brainstorming what we could do to get something to work so back then you could do the revs quicker so we did a quick Rev to get a part back with memory working right very quick yeah you know too quick at the time it seemed like a long time but it was like it was you know three weeks or something right uh so then you know we were like all right we got memory um so okay let me back up a little bit we were able to get memory working on those first Parts but you know back then it was 21.33 yeah we got it working at 18. okay 18 yeah oh wait nine megahertz not not 1866. you said 18 I thought you're using shorthand literally even 18.0 okay so is that good I mean because like it works at least check functionality out okay and it took like hours all right just to post right there's a proof of concept at least right so then we got the parts back with them with with memory right um that was the second rev and uh that you know we proved the memory worked we had some issues with the caching at that point so we had to run with Cash's disabled for a long time about this time we find out computex is coming up ah right and the company wants to do a demo we're like we're talking about so would this have been like June 2016 May 2016. yeah it was like I think June 5th is when we and it would have been a demo ryzen like proper or Bristol Ridge or when this wasn't even a name then okay it was only Zen yeah right we did the ryzen name launch after that yeah because I want to say timelines I think the Press event with like a wooden box that said ryzen You remember that yeah yeah I think that was 27th March February 2017 something like that yeah yeah okay so you're you're way before that yeah this is when we did the first reveal the I am Zen thing we find out that hey they want to do this demo like computext okay then we need a part that works you know that that works in the system and so um what we found out is that the second river Parts worked if you got it really cold okay so we had these chillers and we're cooling down to minus 46. I know another company that had chillers well that was very different piece yes it is so we went through the Fab had them screen hundreds thousands of Parts they found two parts that worked at room temperature oh man so literally we have two parts you can feel the second hand stress oh dude we have two parts in the whole world okay that run at room temperature uh so like oh yeah you're on to the demo we're like so then I I still remember the first demo we did was just you booted up Windows desktop had like task manager showing all the cores and everything right and so like like Lisa came down you know and to preview the demo and I just remember her reaction she was like it's not really that exciting oh man we're like you're like do you know what it took to even get this going yeah and she knew right she knows but she she also knows what a stage audience wants to see exactly yeah exactly and that's the challenge yeah and so and at that point I mean you know where empty was at at the time I feel like that's worth maybe contextualizing for anyone who who wasn't kind of like like there when this was all happening but yeah we obviously weren't in the position you guys were in but from the outside we could see it with a very different scope and before Horizon so ryzen one launch is around 2017 sometime and um it wasn't perfect there you know it took a while to get the platform maturity all this stuff but I distinctly remember as a reviewer looking at it and going okay there's a chance like this this can go somewhere right and up until that point uh for years basically I I remember we had trouble where we were trying to keep AMD Parts on The Benchmark charts when Intel would launched these things because it's like I can't have a chart filled with only Intel CPUs but um as you know like AMD with bulldozer Piledriver all that stuff uh there weren't as many chips just in pure numbers of skus as Intel and they weren't as competitive as rising and so to like kind of contextualize when this was all happening AMD I feel like was in a very Scrappy like oh we're gonna make this happen right like we had to look we were betting the company yeah right that's how we were treating it right yeah were we really I don't know but it was close yeah I mean it's it's it it's a big deal right because yeah because normally you wouldn't do a copy text demo when you only have two working parts in the whole world right right that's not something and you know but again like the normal position of AMD uh because I don't remember what the uplift was I remember um uh I remember one of the someone on the architecture team got up on stage Mike Clark probably and said something about like a 50 something percent uplift or whatever it was and like that that was possible because of sort of where Andy was up until that point yeah yeah it was really there was even a bigger IPC uplift on um like my i o workloads that I care about there's almost 100 uplift so and that was IPC and then we also doubled the course right so it ended up so how did that overall did that end up going to computex for actual demo yeah yeah so we had the two parts one of them we've used at 400 megahertz that's our safe part yeah right that one will work and do what we need to do it's a backup um the other part was was the one I had and so I was pushing it a little bit right right to see what we could do in case we had to do some sort of performance thing or whatever right so that one eventually I got running at like 2.2 gig okay but we had to still figure out what we're doing so then we played around with doing like a Cortana it tells you how long it seems like a long time ago but yeah so we would you know have Lisa talk to Cortana and have a talk back right and we're like okay no this this is lame yeah so then we ended up going what we want with where we um we played a video I think and it was rendered on the machine okay yeah and then we did die and Zen review and all that right so I do remember the I don't know if it was that event but I remember the like uh sort of yeah right yep yeah like concentric rendering yep that's cool yeah yeah so the second part I carried in this case Okay in this backpack on the plane from Fort Collins to Taiwan like I literally had the company you know on me right on your back yeah and I'm like I can't lose this I can't I can't mess it up all right we all have pins I'm like I have to go I have to be there another story so you see this case the reason I know it's this case is it's green ah so AMD used to use green yeah before we bought ETI there's probably some logos around here somewhere but yeah so that's no longer compliant right yeah right but it's uh okay all right so that's that you have other historical artifacts yes okay so check this out so these are the initial Raven prototypes so this is the first gen Apu right yeah so you see something different between these two other than obviously the the sort of shell on the outside yeah the shells different see the sticker I do see the sticker so the initial prototypes were like this one on the right where we actually laser etched the die okay oh yeah right and so um it's just one of the debugs we did we were debugging those parts and it was there was always this one particular section of the cache that wasn't working you know this particular scan chain on the part and we're like this doesn't make any sense right so we spent a while debugging it eventually I got like a floor plan of the Chip And then someone sent me the the laser pattern that was on there and we found that where this laser was marking was like right over where the cash was dying okay so was the laser damaging I think it was etching too deep okay right and so but like when you're debugging stuff you never know where you're gonna end up in this case it was the laser etching on the part that ended up being what we had to debug and so man so that's why we went to these stickers now was that like uh how how long did it take to figure that out I guess that was that was weeks that was weeks because I mean you don't think to that it's gonna be something physical like that no no electrical voltage all that stuff right and eventually once we got the picture and we lined it up we were like oh my God that's it yeah so that was that was pretty nuts okay this one so x3d okay so this is the first prototype is that four gigahertz right Josh is actually the one who fused it so um so this part okay so this is a funny story so the original x3d was meant for server right so back then we had eight eight ccds per part and so they built all these parts they had seven left over okay so I asked them hey can we build some am4 parts so we got three two plus ones and one one plus one just ease up the seven that wouldn't make up a full right epic part sure and that's what we got to do uh to do the gaming studies right and that's what we're able to prove that x3d is not only good for Server it's like killer for gaming like this yeah I remember the first x3d announcement the reason I remember this is because normally I watch a keynote uh and we've typically been pre-breathed and I'm like uh I gotta sit here just in case yeah and normally the Justin Case is like not enough to go edit re-edit and shoot the video yeah um this one when Lisa's like here's the Stacked thing with then here's some numbers uh I do remember being actually excited when filming that News segment yeah which is very rare for a News segment for me and I also remember talking to Matt off camera over here at the time yeah and he was like yeah I'm amazed we kept that a secret that long because it didn't leak yeah that's like one of the only things that didn't leave uh yeah but it wasn't even supposed to be a product right it was supposed to be server stuff yeah but when we saw the gaming upload for like we got to make this into something make it a thing yeah yeah so yeah this one actually has two x3ds okay right so it's a 16 car it would have been uh whatever 59 50 X3 right right and I remember the first I think the first demo on stage was a higher end part than what was shipped initially I don't remember I think yeah it was some 50 SKU but yeah yeah yeah exactly we weren't sure you know the end of the am4 right sure but it's it's still selling like yeah like crazy 58x3d is is a very desirable chip still so yeah yeah but that's it started with this with this chip right here that's cool all right just an idea hey let's see let's let's give it a shot so so is that something where So when you say fuse that Force Hertz what do you really mean I guess yeah so the way our parts are configured right you know we have different opns different skus different models so anything that is specific either to a part or to a model we put in diffuses so they're actually physical wires that we blow on the chip okay that could be read as a one or a zero right and that tells hey here's the frequency here's my f Max here's the voltage I should run at here's my FV curve you know anything that's per part gets fused in that way cool so initially when we get prototypes we don't know how to fuse them so they we get what's called unfused parts right and once we have a recipe you know then we then we fuse it in okay and so that goes back to the JTAG with our um Hardware the debug tool or the wombat right those unfused parts we can write those fuses in with JTAG and create that recipe right there on the fly yeah we call that soft fusing yeah guys so then it can be an eight core and we can down core it or whatever and and other characteristics of the part through that right cool yeah um okay so that's that one this one we'll see if it makes makes it past the editors but this is a this is a Chagall part okay okay so this as you know we release only the the workstation part right right so this one this is actually a prototype for a hedt Chicago okay cool yeah so we did build them yeah and we tested them out we just ran into some issues with prioritizing it sure yeah at the time but uh but it does exist it does exist yeah can I ask how many cores that particular 64 core four memory channel right okay yeah that's how you get the HTTP right so but yeah no it's uh it's real it's just yeah so oh they work I can show you down here that'd be cool yeah all right yeah so this is my engineer Nathan so he helps make sure a lot of this stuff keeps on ticking every day he's doing breakfast card overclocking actually right now cool um so this is uh it's a very heavily loaded CPU yeah so I I plugged these in updated the BIOS and got these going last week so this one's been running on 135 hours and this one's all right 111. so it's stable so you can see you know these parts actually work um so I'll kill that and this what what would this uh this is seven thousand is this like 79.50 so these are actually am four okay so these are x3d um if you look in the task manager here you can see um this is a 16 core um with dual x 3D CCD so 192 Megs of cash okay um over here um similar situation but this is a 12 core um but also uh with the full stack cache on both right so you know on am4 um you know he made those first experimental ones yeah and then they made um parts that were uh dual x3d like these ones that we have here and we made some hybrid ones like the 7950x we did that on am4 as well um and then obviously we released the 5800 X 3D but you know people uh were like you know why did they make a 16 core or 12 core and do this and that and every and we did and we tried them um you know and for various reasons these weren't productized the gaming person's the same right yeah yeah right and that's one or two CCD because you want to be cash resident yeah right and once you split into two caches you don't get the gaming uplift so we just made the one CCD version but then we got feedback that hey I I do occasionally want to do productivity stuff that's why we came up with the the two CCD one so as you can see these are legit working parts with uh maybe not so friendly names but but yeah but I guess taking it back to when be cash was first being attempted um what did the process look like in terms of uh when you have an idea when someone on the team has an idea for hey I've got this uh design approach where we attach more cash to the top of a CCD what steps do you go through I mean does the person pitch that to someone specific in the company or like how do you go about turning the idea into an actual proof of Concepts okay so in the design process we have this this point we call high level definition right and that's where we try and Define the the feature set for the product and all the major features should be comprehended then with resource time frames and all that okay um for something like x3d or V cash there's a there's a Fab component to it right process component right so we have we have separate timelines for right process improvements you know most of it's just the different nodes making sure you get all the different information with the different nodes but something like be cash was like a completely new technology right because I remember threadripper was a somewhat similar story where um mackery does that sound right who's involved yeah James Pryor yeah he's involved Anil harwani so yeah I spoke with them back back when that happened and uh I remember some of the story time was similar of it's kind of like this this one was Scrappy like hey here's an idea let's see what happens yeah and again you know a lot of times you do Parts maybe you know get you like a benchmark win or whatever right right you don't know if anyone's gonna buy it right right and that's we get surprised sometimes like threadripper became a great seller yeah we're like he's gonna pay that much for right but if you wanted yeah a lot of people do work at home and do productivity stuff yeah some people we use them in our editing machine yeah so we just want the best right yeah we're willing to so is uh do you have to be like a PM or someone like that to to move a product idea into where it goes seriously no no we have a you know we have this jira system right and so anyone can log in enhancement request right cool and then you know might get rejected for one program but right you know you can move it clone it forward to a different programs we'll get evaluated yeah so anyone can come up with an idea let's fall I mean I like that yeah yeah they don't all make it through obviously I mean of course not right there's a lot of business and Logistics behind it too like right yeah third Ripper came out of that x3d getting you know the client version came out of that right right so yeah it's that's cool it's pretty cool yeah that's kind of the end of this side discussion we were getting looked at by the rest of the AMD team at this point for quite some time we're getting looked at from over here so okay I think they're hungry okay and so we headed out and then we continued the rest of the tour later check back for our full detailed lab tour of amd's Austin headquarters it's really cool content we're working hard on putting it all together and we'll be posting that within the next week so make sure you check back regularly to catch that video for now thanks for watching subscribe for more zoys and if you want to support this type of content where we fund all of our own travel expenses for this stuff go to store.gamersnexus.net and grab a mod mat a shirt a tool kit coaster pack or something like that you can also go to patreon.com gamersnexis or subscribe as a member on our YouTube page thanks for watching we'll see see you all next time

Channel: Gamers Nexus

Views: 288,739

Keywords: gamersnexus, gamers nexus, computer hardware, amd, amd zen, amd ryzen, amd zen history, amd history, amd ryzen history

Id: RTA3Ls-WAcw

Length: 22min 45sec (1365 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 16 2023

Reddit Comments

[u/advester]

From the video: 5800x3d wouldn’t have happened, but they had a few leftover prototype chips from server development and let some engineers try it for gaming.

[u/amdmomentofzen]

Bill and I and the rest of the AMD team had a great time hosting Steve and the whole GN crew that came out to Austin! It was cool to finally be able to tell everyone about some of the backstories behind getting Zen working, it was a crazy time!!!

[u/Darkomax]

I love how some side projects birthed actual products like the 5800x3D and Threadripper. And that Zen 3 Threadripper or 5950X3D have been prototyped must hurt some poeple.

[u/hydraxx747]

It's sad to see that the Ryzen 9 "5950X3D" and "5900X3D" with 2 CCD 3D-VCaches that we can see in the state of ES in this video never went into mass production and were never released, some like me or others are as much gamers as they need productivity power...

[u/RBImGuy]

Intel already working on a timemachine to ensure that flight wasnt gonna reach the target

[u/Waterprop]

This was very interesting video. Thanks Steve.

I just wish there would be more videos like to show the hardships of designing, testing and delivering these kind of products to the masses. They are really interesting, at least for me.

Also the guy on the right really likes his job. You can just hear it.

[u/RayTracedTears]

This brings back so many memories. The forum wars, the 26 nested back and forth comment battles on Reddit, and the eventual universal praise when Zen 2 launched.

By far one of the most exciting eras of recent tech history.

Imagine for a moment that 3DFX started making GPUs again and pushed Nvidia to it's very limits in shader counts. Only to beat them in IPC and shader counts with the 3rd iteration. A company that McGyvered their way into the performance crown.

[u/YeahBoiSheThicc]

Imagine debugging an apu for weeks, only to find out that the laser markings are the problem

[u/detectiveDollar]

Just built an unraid server with a 3800XT I found locally for 100 bucks. It'd be a dark timeline if Zen didn't happen. The 9900k used is like 300 on eBay.